Thinking of buying a 81 300D non-Turbo
 

Hello everyone. New to the thread here but do have a general question about a mercedes I look forward to buying within the news couple of weeks.

the car in question is a 1981 Mercedes 300D Non-Turbo. I have looked and test drove the car but have a couple of questions I would like to ask. This would be the first Mercedes I would own and the first diesel.

At first glance the car looks in great shape. Some rust here and there but nothing major, Interior is in good condition with the wood coming off the dash.

So what I can gather is the Odometer stopped working at 83530 and when driving the car the speedo would kinda bounce around. The car would not start with it having a dead battery but connected a jumper box that had a hard time starting it, I should note it was around 15F this day. When it did fire up and idled so smoothly, it almost seemed like you could put a coin on top of the engine and balance it. The engine could be felt a little through the car. I did check the oil and it was black but not milky or cloudy.

once we got it onto the road everything seemed fine and drove smoothly. Now I did notice that 3rd gear holds for a few seconds staying at the higher RPM before shifting into 4th. But other than that was a good all around car.

again I'm new here and would like some advice on what I gave or some tips I could use to help figure out how healthy this car would be. Thank you.

Hello and welcome to the forum! We would strongly recommend that before you buy the car, you get a PPI (pre-purchase inspection) done by an independent Mercedes shop. This report should give you all the information you'll need in deciding whether the car is worth buying or not. Please let us know if you have any other questions or if we can assist with any future part needs. Thanks!